Devs behind Steam wishlist hit The Day Before defend use of unpaid volunteers

rockpapershotgun.com:

Fntastic, the studio developing Steam’s most wishlisted game The Day Before, have issued a statement to RPS explaining their policy of using paid and unpaid volunteers to make up their dev team. Metaphorical alarm bells began ringing earlier this week when it emerged that Fntastic are composed entirely of “volunteers” – although full-time volunteers, kindly dubbed "employees" in the statement, do receive salaries.

You and I might immediately question a company’s practices if they say they use voluntary work to make products people pay for. Fntastic founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev, however, take a broader view:

“Volunteering at Fntastic means that a person works willingly for a common cause. We consider all team members, including employees, volunteers,” they said in the statement provided to RPS. “This idea comes from our own experience and aspiration. We, the founders of Fntastic, Eduard and Aisen, consider ourselves volunteers not only for Fntastic but in every sphere of life.”

The Gotovtsev brothers acknowledged that Fntastic is a “commercial organization” that aims to "create the best conditions" for team members, and that "as our organization grows in capacity, we intend to be more involved in improving the lives of people around the world". You'd think a good place to start might be to pay all of their staff. The statement then went on to explain the structure of Fntastic’s team, including distinguishing between their paid staff and unpaid supporters:

Crucially, the Gotovtsev brothers’ gave more information on the work that unpaid supporters contribute to The Day Before and Fntastic’s other games, such as online survival horror Propnight. “In addition to tests, external volunteers (supporters) help